Project Alpha

Project Alpha is a U.S. Joint Forces Command rapid idea analysis group. It was created to “scout the future” and identify high-impact ideas from industry, academia and the defense community that could transform the Department of Defense into an organization better equipped to deal with the uncertain landscape of the future.

The group aims to accelerate transformation through the swift analysis and transfer of practical ideas to the JFCOM joint concept development & experimentation (JCD&E) efforts and where appropriate, other DoD agencies with the ability to further mature and develop proposals for incorporation into their own joint transformation efforts.

Project Alpha's success in this endeavor relies upon on its ability to identify the usefulness of new ideas to joint operations, and then link them with the emerging concepts that support them. When ideas are coupled in this fashion, they will take on relevance for a variety of agencies in the defense community.

Project Alpha provides awareness of new ideas throughout DoD, as well as reinvigorate and improve ideas that may not have been initially recognized as relevant to joint transformation efforts.

Project Alpha focuses on the discovery, development and application of fresh ideas to solve problems in the real world of national security. It is not about program management or acquisition.

Documenting and articulating these ideas is the responsibility of three to four person “idea teams” that employ a rapid analysis process, or RAP. The RAP streamlines the vetting process for a new concept and gets the knowledge into the hands of appropriate decision makers more quickly than the traditional Department of Defense budgeting and planning cycle. Project Alpha teams can move from issue identification to RAP completion in 3-4 months, which will result in production of ten to twelve RAPs per year.

Through our RAP process, journal publications, seminars, workshops, limited objective experiments and contributions to service Title X war games, Project Alpha will work to speed the introduction of good ideas into the joint force.

More importantly, Project Alpha will seek to build a core constituency of idea- generating organizations committed to the discovery and implementation of transformative ideas.

Rapid Analysis process The PA objective is to convince DoD agencies who would benefit to adopt and cultivate new ideas, and to ensure that good ideas complement the command's JCD&E efforts. Our RAP reports will introduce relevant ideas to J9 for inclusion in the formal military recommendation process and, when appropriate, take ideas directly to the services and other transformation stakeholders for immediate action. Initial efforts have resulted in an increased flow of good ideas into and out of the joint experimentation directorate for further maturation and very soon, expectations are that ideas with demonstrated utility will be headed toward operational implementation.

Currently, four RAP reports have been produced:

• Swarming Entities – the Operational Utilities of Establishing Humans-On-The-Loop. Using lessons learned from bees and ants, the idea is to use numerous unmanned systems working in collaboration with each other to converge from disperse locations to strike and disable targets. Entities control themselves through use of digital signal to direct other entities to a target or to avoid a target. One person could monitor and control lots of small cheap unmanned vehicles rather than a team controlling one UAV.

• Use of Compressive Receivers in Detecting and Locating “Hard-To-Get” Threat Emitters. Increase ability of friendly forces to detect future weapons. Specifically, use compressive receivers used in SR71 Blackbird aircraft to detect several advanced surface-to-air missiles (SAMs).

• Medical Operations Transformation. Integrate medical planners and command and control into the standing joint force headquarters to help guard against biological, chemical and radiological agents.

• Pattern Recognition For Time-Critical Targeting. Building software that detect patterns in sensor tracking data of enemy missiles and air defense capabilities. Patterns could determine where loading facilities, bases are located, the type of weapon, and perhaps enemy intent.

For more information about Project Alpha or to submit an idea, please click here.